Aloha Hawaii

My time in Hawaii has officially drawn to its end. From cliff jumping to lava to swimming with dolphins and cloud hopping in the trusty old wing, I consider myself very fortunate to have been permitted the entire experience. Being able to live there for five months gave me the opportunity to take my time and take in all that was happening that much better. I never felt rushed or like squandering my Hawaiian time, even when I was doing something as lazy as sitting on the edge of the Halemaumau overlook reading a book.

The Big Island, as any new part of life, was everything but what I had expected it to be. I tried to imagine what life in Hawaii would be like and it's weird to think that I am leaving.

Now, I am headed back to Oregon. It's time to fly.

Flying Kealakekua and Kahana

I couldn't resist the clouded beauty of my last Kealakekua flights when I was trying to put something together from Kahana, so the video starts with some of my favoriate Kealakekua footage of cloud hopping before the breathtaking views of Kahana.

This was one of those videos that pretty much threw itself together requiring little editing. It's easy when working with scenery so beautiful.

Mary's Peak, OR

It looks like Ryan got a nice little flight in last weekend at Mary's Peak in Oregon. I have yet to fly over snow and it looks like he beat me to it. I'd say I am and jealous, but I wasn't exactly watching the Superbowl either. Enjoy another Rogue Duck flick. It's always good to see footage from the white wing.

And to Ryan, until we fly again buddy.

Kahana Indeed

Until recently I had been under great trial and tribulation. I sold my car last week and that left me with three weekends in Hawaii with no means to fly. However, Oahu, a sort-of kind-of really famous flying Mecca was only an hour's plane ride away. The thing about Oahu, especially in the winter, is that the weather can be unpredictable, at least when the wind is concerned. Dropping $350 on a weekend of potentially no flying is a dangerous thing to someone my age.

Last week, I checked the weather everyday through Thursday. I asked the Oahu pilots what they thought of the coming weekend's conditions. Late Thursday night, I took the plunge, bought the tickets, reserved the car, and didn't ask or think about the weather again until Saturday morning.

Saturday, I awoke on Oahu at my buddy Gary's. He was kind of enough to let me use his pad as a home base. The wind looked bad, really bad. A SE with 20-30 mph was hammering the island. It was unlikely that the wind would ever clock the 7-10 mph NE I so desperately wanted. One pilot, Woody, brought his speed wings, and several of us hung out on a grass beach kiting the little wings. It was my first time with such a small wing and I found them easy to control even in the high winds. Seven or eight stayed till sunset talking and enjoying the kiting practice.

Oahu had recently made national paragliding headlines as one of the best clubs in the county and I soon saw why. Even though flying was out of the question that afternoon, they chose to just hang out together and they enjoyed it. They acted like one family enjoying the sunny Saturday. I admit I felt like an outsider, but that's because I was.

Kiting speedwings Saturday

Early on Sunday Gary and I headed toward Makapuu a cross country ridge soaring site. Yes, cross country ridge soaring. There were already two pilots in the air, but it was coming in strong - too strong for me and my half powered wing. Understand that I am flying a beginner's wing that sacrifices speed for stability. To make matters worse, Oahu flying is known for strong winds, 15-17 mph base. I am certain my glider tops out around 17 mph, so standing there with Gary at Makapuu, watching gliders faster than mine parked in the air, barely able to penetrate forward, made my heart sink. The winds were supposed to be howling Monday, my last day on the island. Sunday was my only chance. Then Gary got a call from some folks headed toward another site, farther north - Kahana. It wasn't flyable there, but the winds were expected to change there in a good way. In the Hawaiian language, Kahana means wondrous or amazing. I would find the site lived up to its name.

We jumped drove the hour to find two pilots sitting on the landing zone beach with a gentle breeze coming directly in. I tried to contain my excitement as some other pilots began to arrive. Then the first of us began the steep climb to launch.

I laid out and watched some pilots launch. Some sunk out. Some scratched and climbed out. Conditions were light. It looked like those who were able to climb out found delightfully stronger winds aloft. With much anticipation, I pulled my glider above me and was surprised when I was plucked backwards. I steered clear of the ridge, turned myself around, leaned back in the harness, took a wrap of the controls, and prepared to scratch until my wing bled. For twenty minutes I struggled to maintain altitude at launch. Then I started catching the occasional thermal. I did all I could to linger in them and gain 10 - 20 feet here and there. I would gain a little and scratch to stay there, gain a little more and scratch again. It was slow, but I was working my way higher. At one point, I was high enough to clear the first ridge and was met with breath taking cliffs. They generated really good lift too. I eventually crested entire ridge line with a feeling of victory. Of the ten or so that had launched, I was one of four to make it up at that point. I have a slow glider, but it is buoyant for DHV 1-2.

I was rewarded with this view

Gary was one of the lucky few above me. He invited me to go cross country with him. I knew any thermal cross country trips would be over in an hour. I gambled that conditions would improve where we were and decided to stay. The others departed.

And there I was, back in the coastal ridge lift I had learned in all the way back in Oregon. I turned off my vario several times that day. There was just no need for it. Then there were times I grew too curious of my altitude and I turned it on and the beeping would quickly become annoying, so I'd turn it off again. I eventually settled on keeping the toy muted.

The thermals were nothing like Kealakekua. Instead, they were light with extremely mellow edges. At one point, I found one large enough to climb to 2600 feet before sinking down to the top of the ridge's lift band. I flew the ridge for over an hour until another glider came to meet me. Jim, another local, flew around me for a half hour before he took off towards the north in hopes of finding the others. He heard the earlier talk on the radio and knew I was content where I was as he never asked if I was interested. I enjoyed my first mid-air paragliding snack, a granola bar, and kept on flying.

A little stretch 2 hours into flight

The only unsettling aspect of the day was the abundance of helicopters that would fly by. They'd be higher than us, lower than us, and at the same altitude as us. Too often, I would see them before I would hear them and usually whirly-birds were already too close. At one point, a helicopter flew about quarter a mile upwind from me, crossed my path. I began to wonder if the rotor would reach my wing and tried not to think about how my wing would react. Another glider immediately began making spirals to lose altitude and, what appeared to me, get away from being downwind of the coming rotor. I didn't ask. I did the same thing and climbed up several hundreds feet a few minutes later after what I imagined to be enough time to let everything smooth out.

Woody enjoying the setting sun

As the hours passed, I worked my way back toward the ocean. The wind was shifting from more east to more north and I wanted to make sure I was out in front of everything while that was happening. I worked the sea cliffs over the ocean until Woody and Rodney, a Maui instructor, joined me. The three of us flew together for over an hour until Woody decided to land. Rodney and I tried to cross the bay, but even on full speed-bar, I found my ground speed sinking to .6 mph with no lift over the water. He and I were forced to turn around and return to our ridge. The sun had already started to set. I had been in the air over four hours and the wind was starting to pick up. It was becoming much harder to move forward. I swung out one last time over the bay and completed two series of spirals before beginning my landing routine on a beautifully wide and long beach. I landed more or less cross wind due to some beach goers blocking a final turn into the wind, but I touched down softly nonetheless and packed everything away.

Me  and my wing off in the valley: photo by Jim

That night, the club president, Alex, hosted a BBQ at his place. Most who flew that day found their way to his place, where everyone welcomed me and I greatly enjoyed talking story and eating. It was the sort of group in which you just feel you belong, like everybody there would be easy to befriend given time. I no longer felt like an outsider. Goodbyes involved hugs and laughing. I said farewell and headed toward my host's abode recapping the events of the day.

Monday saw a return to winds 20+ mph and my return to the Big Island. I had only one day of Oahu flying under my belt, but I knew I was lucky. To have a light wind but flyable day on Oahu is rare. I definitely felt grateful to have had such an experience to call my own. After returning to the Big Island, I am still trying to process everything about the mellow flight. I can't help but keep thinking how different Kahana is from Kealakekua. I also realize that this will be my last Hawaiian flight. I am OK with this given that everything was EPIC!

PS. The photos in the gallery of my blue Ellus 2 are compliments of Jim when we were flying together.

Final flights over Kealakekua

Tandem glider in the air on my way back to launch

Whenever I'm driving to a site, it's usually pretty far (2+ hours) away. I always end up wondering "Is this day going to be the one? Is this day going to be epic?" I never really know if I am going to be up for hours or if I am going to be stuck with 7 minute sledders all weekend. As I wound my old '91 Explorer through the snaking roads of Naalehu and South Kona, I again found myself lost in these thoughts. Given that this was to be my weekend flying on the island, I wanted to end it with something big. Saturday started with the usual morning sledder. A couple of other guys always took advantage of the stable but smooth morning air for short flights. I'd catch a ride with them as they went back to launch. That morning the air didn't seem exceptional or even note worthy. Sitting in the back of the pickup on the way back to launch gave me a beautiful view over the bay. I couldn't help but take in the moment knowing this was to be my final weekend in Kealakekua.

The launches always grows crowded by noon

I returned to launch to find no one really eager to get into the air. A couple guys would launch and sink out. A few more would launch and repeat the process. I decided to join the third volley into the valley. I was met with little to no lift, so I set course toward the main LZ. Half way there, I encountered only the weakest bit of a thermal. It was weak, but I soon discovered it was wide enough to make shallow turns in. After a few 360s and a hundred feet gain, the thermal grew stronger. The other guys from my group had already landed at this point. I continued to climb. The 4th volley launch and sunk out. I had scratched from 100 ft above the LZ to now 1000 ft above launch and was still climbing. I eventually found a ceiling of sorts around 3200 ft. Following the track of the thermal, I was nearly a mile south of launch. After playing there and realizing I wouldn't be getting any higher, I headed toward launch to watch yet another group of pilots take off. By this point, conditions had improved. They stayed airborne.

I watched as one pilot, Neal, hit a strong thermal edge and stalled half his wing into a helicopter spin. He recovered, but not before giving himself a 180 degree riser twist and sending his glider downwind towards the hill. With a skill I only hope to one day have, he turned himself around beneath his glider and then turned his glider around. I thought he was going to try to crash land. To my amazement, Neal cleared the trees of the ridge, went out over the valley, and climbed to greet me. I could only congratulate him.

The lift improved as clouds continued to build. The 3200 ft ceiling disappeared. I reached 3900 ft, a previous record for me at Kealakekua, and encountered the base of the scattered clouds. Clouds are still a new and foreign feature to me. I am trying to figure out what their lift and sink patterns are. I may have entered a cloud or two that day to see what they are all about and discovered, as I had been told, that the latent heat of condensation produces fair lift. The lift was consistent, widespread, and mellow on the edges. I played by jumping in and out of the cloud margins seeing how quickly visibility disappeared and practicing using only a GPS to fly a bearing. Once, I cored up to 4600 feet at one point and used my GPS to set a course due W for the beach, where I knew I would meet blue skies. As fantastic as this experience was, I began to grow nervous as I stayed in this soup for several minutes. I thought for sure that I should have left the cloud by this point. According to the GPS, I continued to gain altitude and had positive ground speed. As terrain slowly faded into view and the sun warmed my face I released a sigh of relief. I played with clouds for a long time and then noticed most pilots were headed toward the bay landing site, the church. I flew out over the bay, where the air was smooth and enjoyed being on glide from 4000 ft to nearly 100 ft all the while observing the marine life and coral. I kept thinking how lucky I was to being experiencing that moment. As I dropped lower and lower, I noticed the onshore wind increasing in strength. I found my glider bucking into a 12+mph headwind as I set up for the church landing. Depending on what combination of brakes and speedbar I used, I could sit almost motionless above the ground. I parked my wing for a few minutes while another pilot landed and then followed his landing pattern in. In effect, I just hung above the LZ and waited until I gently descended straight down to terrafirma.

Last pilot landing Saturday

I spent over 2 hours and 20 minutes in the air on that one flight. The LZ crowd held a celebratory mood. I too marveled in the experience I just had and packed my glider with shaky hands. As much as I liked being in the air, I had been ready to land. I relaxed in the balmy heat of being at sea level in the tropics and enjoyed laughs with my soon to be old friends.

That night I was invited to dinner by a neighbor of the launch. Several other pilots were there. Everyone else was in their 60s or 70s. The conversations varied from flying to former lives to how everyone ended up in Hawaii. As the groups split and rejoined, I eventually found myself at the balcony starring into the evening sky and wondering just how I started hanging out with a group of people that were all at least twice my age. The funny thing is, before that moment I had never viewed them as being that old. They all flew in strong conditions and landed like spry 20-somethings. I began to understand how odd paragliding is, to bring such an unusual group of people together - Scotty, a sky bum and contractor; Gene, a retired commercial fisherman from Alaska; Charlie, a retired teacher and construction worker; and then me, a volcanologist. Last October, I was only a random person that materialized on their launch one Saturday morning and they treated me like family from the get-go. Returning to my tent on launch, I realized this would be my last night in Kealakekua. The moonshine was surprisingly bright, but sleeping wasn't difficult.

Sunday didn't return the same air time. I enjoyed a half hour of flying, but conditions over developed early and I ended up saying goodbye to the closest thing to a family I have had on the Big Island with handshakes and hugs.

Again I find myself saying goodbye. That's something that most other pilots don't really talk about. You meet so many unique and interesting people. Some you get to know well for an extended period of time, but you eventually say farewell to all of them. Flying is a bittersweet thing.

View S from launch with my glider before the final flight

Last Time at Kealakekua

I arrived at launch last Saturday before 9am. The wind was reported to be a strong 35 N. Given that we were on the lee side of the island, it seemed unlikely the SSW launch would work. I decided to head out and try flying anyway. I found Scotty and Moku already on launch observing conditions. The flags were blowing directly up launch (SSW). They said it was rotor. Being a lowly P3 and knowing the wind forecast, I did not dispute their conclusions. I waited until other P4s, Sammy and Gene, arrived. Sammy and Gene are both retired. You wouldn't know it, but Gene is the oldest pilot in the area at 76. He launched first without showing much concern. Gene said they would report conditions once air borne, but he never got the chance. The air was rough, really rough. Collapses were happening every few seconds, but it wasn't unflyable. Sammy launched. Their gliders would shimmer and shudder in the air, but they were gaining altitude. I looked at Scotty. He looked at me. We both knew what was to happen.

Sammy and Gene were not in trouble, but they weren't having relaxing flights either. As part of my self  duty, I wanted to launch into that circus of air currents. I unpacked my wing and launched.

The air was the toughest stuff I have been in to date. I was getting knocked around hard. Later, Sammy would say it was P4 air. I fought to stay in a thermal only to take a major collapse, recover, find lift, and take a collapse again. I was cursing and laughing, terrified and exhilarated  Eventually, I began to lose altitude and began to think about landing. I made sure I kept the an LZ within an easy glide. I felt like my glider kept getting swatted by some invisible giant.

When the time came, I began the standard approach that involved killing as much altitude as possible before flying between two mango trees and then swinging some really aggressive S-turns to bring me down on that down hill slope. As usual, I found almost flyable lift right as I passed the two trees and had that half-second inspiration of "I can fly out of here" but soon came to my senses that it would be better to just land than to try to be a hero in marginal air. I fought through the thermic turbulence until I could engage my short final and stuck it perfectly. I turned around, quickly killed the glider, radioed in my safe landing (a requirement in Kealakekua) and reveled in the excitement I had just been through. I felt like a king.

This coming weekend will be my final weekend at Kealakekua. Next Friday, I sell my car. So all coming flights will be bittersweet as I say good bye to all I have just begun to meet.

Hawaii: The Big Island and how I learned to love the bump

During my last months in Oregon, I was offered a temporary position in the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. As a young aspiring geologist, I was and still am stoked; however, I was concerned because contacting the flying group on the Big Island was proving to be especially difficult. Oahu's flying group was alive and active online, but the most I could get about the Big Island was three phone numbers. No one answered on those numbers when I called before leaving.

After arriving on the island, I tried again. I spoke with a local instructor, Scotty, who said the only flying was in Kealakekua Bay. That was a problem for me. Kealakekua Bay was two hours away by car. I had no car. I really didn't want to buy a car because my time in Hawaii was to be a brief five months. I search for junkers, but finding a vehicle on the Island was difficult. That is, until a co-worker gave me a number of his friend. In the end I bought a 1991 Ford Explorer 4x4 for $900. It ran fine. Mostly.

On my 4th weekend on the Big Island, I was Kealakekua bound for the first time. I met Scotty face-to-face and he gave me site intro. All the landing zones were classified as restricted. Restricted, really, was a euphemism. Even at the most forgiving LZ you only got one chance to land once you committed and you had to commit well before you final leg of approach. This gave the air lots of opportunities to raise or drop before landing. Landing too early or too late meant power lines, trees, or bees. The area to land sloped down in the direction of the prominent wind direction at a gradient steeper than any modern glider's glide ratio. For these reasons, any flying on the Big Island was P3 or higher only. I was intimidated, but I knew that it was either fly here or not fly on the island. I told Scott I could do it. I had doubts. As bad as the LZs in Kealakekua are, the launch is good. It's wide, grassy, gently sloping, and without too much rotor producing objects. I knew launching would be no problem.

So I launched early in the morning to avoid any thermic activity. I knew I was in for a 7 minute sledder. I spent half that time following the procedure for the main LZ approach. I came down almost too early and dropped the glider in a bunch of coffee plants. Moku, another local pilot, watched my landing. He wasn't impressed, but it wasn't bad enough to get me kicked out.

I've flown just about every weekend I could have in Kealakekua since and am still counting. In doing so, I have more flights and hours flown over Kealakekua than at another site. More importantly, I have learned to thermal. Kealakekua is only thermic. There's no ridge lift. That's right. Remember my great enemy at Pine Mountain and Woodrat? It's been a learning process, but I've had a flew flights over an hour now, which I consider an accomplishment. Even though most flights are somewhere between 20-30 minutes, I still have a blast. Just writing that puts it all into perspective. Less than a year ago, a 20-30 minute flight would have been akin to a miracle. Now it's average.

Learning to thermal was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be, grant it sometimes you don't find anything and you just sink out. Figuring out efficient turning and what good lift feels like is easy. The hard part was just increasing my tolerance to turbulence - being OK with getting knocked around in the air. When you are hundreds or thousands of feet in the sky and your glider is getting thrashed around, taking deflations, and generally just misbehaving, it's pretty damn unsettling. Even with SIV training, I found myself (unnecessarily) scared at many points. However, I made it a point to keep launching into stronger and stronger air. Somewhere between last September and now, I started flying mid-day. I have learned to embrace "the bump" as it's called. I learned that high pressure days meant smaller, stronger thermals than low pressure days. Thermals I once thought too small to use, I learned to core into. The complicated landing zone has become almost routine. Almost because the LZ also happens to be one of the most thermically active surfaces in the area. You can ALWAYS expect a good 50-100 foot kick, if not more coming in. That said, sometimes the kick doesn't happen, but you need to be ready for anything. That means coming in on a final that will put you where you will want to be without lift but also a final that will let you bleed out an extra 200-300 feet if things go crazy and things do go crazy. Here is video is from my first four weeks of Kealakekua flying.

One day I found myself in 1400+ foot per minute lift with comparable sink. My poor wing was taking collapses all over the place. One collapse was 70-80% of my wing. Given that it was my third week at Kealakekua, my brain was in crisis mode (not to be confused with panic). I used spirals to get down, but it still took me a long time because every time I would exit the spiral, the lift would suck me back up several hundred feet. It was a day I kissed the ground after landing. In hindsight, I should have stayed airborne and just rode things out another hour or two until the lift calmed down with the setting sun.

Did I improve those landings? Did I become a thermal pilot? I can answer unequivocally 'yes' to both these questions, but I was still a P2, a subject I discussed with Scotty when I met him, but I told him I was an advanced P2. This was true. I had over 25 hours, 100 flights, and experience in wide range of mellow conditions. Kealakekua was the place to grow. If Oregon had been my cradle for flying, Kealakekua is my playground. After observing my good landings, honestly my landings have become something I am proud of, my budding thermaling skills, and giving me a little exam, Scotty and Chris, another instructor, gave me my P3 license. Ellis had commented once long before that if I could just stay alive long enough, I would turn into a decent pilot. I think that's true now.

Fall turned to winter in Hawaii and flying conditions improved as they usually do in Kealakekua. The days became sunnier and nights cooler - a recipe for good flying. Here is a video of the early winter flying there.

That's it. That's a quick summary of everything to the present. From here on out it's current.